Project offers free HIV testing

Updated 9:11 pm, Wednesday, June 20, 2012

DANBURY -- Thanks to the wonders of pharmaceutical invigorators, there are a lot of gray-haired men having sex.

That is why senior citizens aren't immune to the threat of HIV infection and having that infection grow to full-blown AIDS.

"There are people living in elderly housing complexes who have active sex lives," Roberta Stewart, director of the AIDS Project Greater Danbury, said Tuesday. "We want to educate them."

AIDS Project Greater Danbury is emphasizing the need for all people -- young and old -- to get a simple HIV test.

The organization will hold its annual free HIV testing day Friday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at its office, 30 West St.

More Information

How many cases?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate more than a million people in the U.S. are living with HIV. One in five of them is unaware of the infection.
In Connecticut, 19,821 cases of HIV were diagnosed from 1980 to 2010, according to the state Department of Public Health. Of those, 9,284 (47 percent) died, while 10,537 were living with HIV in 2010.
The CDC has estimated there are 50,000 new HIV cases in the U.S. every year.
About 600,000 people in the U.S. have died of AIDS since the epidemic began. Worldwide, about 30 million people have died from AIDS.

"We're not looking at different groups and saying, `You should get tested, you don't need to,'" Stewart said. "We need to run away from labels. We think everyone should get a baseline test."

While the publicity about HIV and AIDS isn't as heated as it was at the height of the epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, people are still contracting the virus.